With millions of consumers snapping up tablets running iOS and Android, Microsoft had high hopes of competing its Windows RT operating system. So far, consumers have yet to fully embrace Windows RT, or Windows 8 for that matter. In fact, many analysts are pointing to Windows 8 as part of the reason for the woes in the computer industry.

A Dell executive recently stated that demand for the company's first Windows RT device, the Dell XPS 10, has been weaker than expected. "Demand is not where I would like it to be at this point in time," Neil Hand, head of Dell's tablet and high-end PC business, told CNET. "The amount of market information about it is not good enough, and the market sentiment is still pretty negative."

Hand also says that the Windows app experience "has not been as strong as it needed to be."

Dell and Hand aren't alone in criticism of Windows RT. Windows RT is the first version of the Windows operating system specifically designed to work with ARM-based processors from NVIDIA, QUALCOMM, and others.

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has also noted that sales of Windows RT devices have been disappointing. Samsung even ditched plans to launch its own Windows RT device in the U.S.

The upside to poor demand for Windows RT tablet for consumers is that weak demand has forced prices down.

Actually, I think the game plan is (was?) to deprecate the desktop and desktop _applications_ in favor of the MS controlled "apps" and store in the Metro environment.

MS has been pulling a lot of this kind of nonsense since they were relieved of court ordered supervision a couple of years ago that stemmed from the big monopoly case.

Anywho, we can all bitch all we want. Windows 8 & Metro aren't going away unless the big dogs that buy volume licenses by the tens of thousands and the top manufacturer's demand it. Regular people are not MS' customers.

TIFKAM (The Interface Formally Known As Metro) is the future that MS is betting on. Windows9 will be out in 2-3 years... it will be even LESS "win7" like... in fact, just like WinRT... in maybe "windows" in name only.

Why is it called WindowsPhone and WinRT when the "apps" its runs are not windowed?

Keep Win7... for the next 6 years... migrate to Linux. Send email and letters to Adobe and other companies to MAKE desktop software for Linux.